Quotes of the day

posted at 10:01 pm on September 18, 2013 by Allahpundit

The president has had an almost uniformly bad start to his second term. Scandals, the woe-begotten implementation of his health law, a chaotic unraveling of the once-vaunted “Arab Spring,” the ascendancy of rival nations on the world stage and the intractable partisan standoff in Congress have left Americans skeptical of Obama’s election-year plea to “hold on” just a bit longer to let his agenda work.

In survival mode and stripped of the political stars who helped the administration stay on offense for the first four years, Team Obama is looking bereft. The result of the White House summit of former political aides who helped the president settle on trying to hang the Syria debacle around the necks of Congressional Republicans suggest that David Axelrod & Co. themselves have lost their chops whilst lolling in MSNBC green rooms and Hoovering up corporate cash on K Street.

Obama was also dealt an embarrassing blow this week as Larry Summers withdrew his name from consideration for Federal Reserve Chairman. I wasn’t even for Summers getting the job, but this was another telling sign that the president lacks any political capital on the Hill — among members of either party. If he wasn’t so weak, he might have gotten his pick for the Fed, but as it is, he must defer to the loud voices making demands. The president does not have any influence with members of Congress now, and he isn’t going to have any going forward. I think it’s safe to say he cannot take a leadership role in the looming debt ceiling and budget battles…

Good grief, even the weather won’t cooperate with the president. A leaked copy of the Fifth Assessment Report of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states that, ”there has been a 60 percent increase in the amount of ocean covered with ice” in the past year, with some scientists now even predicting an upcoming phase of global cooling. The melting ice cap was supposed to be the final canary in the coal mine. Well, the canary is bigger and stronger than ever.

***

In the first year of his second term, the president has failed on virtually every front. He put his prestige on the line to pass federal gun-control legislation–and lost. He made climate change a central part of his inaugural address–and nothing has happened. The president went head-to-head with Republicans on sequestration–and he failed. He’s been forced to delay implementation of the employer mandate, a key feature of the Affordable Care Act. ObamaCare is more unpopular than ever, and it’s turning out to be a “train wreck” (to quote Democratic Senator Max Baucus) in practice. The most recent jobs report was the worst in a year, with the Obama recovery already qualifying as a historically weak one. Immigration reform is going nowhere. And then there’s Syria, which has turned out to be an epic disaster. (To be sure, Mr. Obama’s Middle East failures go well beyond Syria–but Syria is the most conspicuous failure right now).

In watching the Obama presidency dissolve before our eyes, there is a cautionary tale to be told. Every presidency falls short of the expectations that the candidate sets. But no man has ever promised more and delivered less than the current occupant of the Oval Office.

All of the extravagant promises and claims — of “Yes We Can!” and “we’re the ones we’ve been waiting for;” of hope and change and slowing the rise of the oceans; of claiming his candidacy would “ring out across this land as a hymn that will heal this nation, repair this world, make this time different than all the rest” — lie in ruin.

***

The president’s zigzagging policy on Syria, the Larry Summers nomination debacle, and Monday’s partisan budget speech at the very moment that the nation was reeling from a madman’s shooting spree at the Washington Navy Yard, are only the latest manifestations of a mystifying paradox: Barack Obama, so surefooted when it comes to the politics of campaigning, often seems flatfooted when it comes to the politics of governing.

The president’s insistent above-the-frayishness, his apparent distaste for the grubby business of retail salesmanship in the Beltway bazaar, frequently seems self-defeating. It’s at least a partial explanation (other than the Obama Derangement Syndrome that infects many House Republicans) for his failure to enact popular gun control legislation, immigration reform, and any number second-term agenda items. “Style,” in this case, is shorthand for a flair in manipulating to one’s advantage the unpretty yet necessary process of legislative sausage-making…

“My take is that on the one hand, he is right that the D.C. Conventional Wisdom echo chamber does grade on style,” Republican strategist Mike Murphy told The Daily Beast in an email, “but on the other hand, the president played the style card right into the White House in 2008. Hard to have it both ways.”

***

“Style,” as the president would have it, matters. Adversaries and allies, foreign and domestic, take a measure of the president’s steel. They judge whether he can be trusted, whether he will back down, whether he has what it takes to lead his country and the world. In the past few weeks, I have encountered not a single person outside the White House, Republican or Democrat, who has kind words for Obama’s performance. Scornful may not be too strong a word for the consensus view, though it is scorn leavened, at least among the more thoughtful critics, with appreciation for the no-good-options reality of Syria.

This attitude is especially important because it arrives at such a dangerous moment for the country, with looming deadlines on government funding and the debt ceiling, and because it is amplified by presidential mishandling of other matters…

So Obama enters yet another treacherous period in a weakened state, with his political allies distrustful and his political opponents caught up in their own dysfunction. Machiavelli advised that it is better to be feared than loved; at the moment, in Congress, Obama is neither.

They complain the White House has not consulted enough and failed to assert leadership. They say Mr. Obama has been too passive and ceded momentum to Republicans. Their grievances are sometimes contradictory; some grouse that he takes on causes he cannot win, while others say he does not fight hard enough for principled positions. The failure to enact tightened gun control laws and the Republican hold on immigration legislation have left liberals little to celebrate this year…

“It makes it a lot harder when it’s your own party,” said Peter H. Wehner, a top Bush aide at the time. “You can’t fire back with the same intensity and vehemence as when it’s the other party. And it just changes the dynamics — people expect you to be criticized by the other party. When your own party does it, it’s an indication of weakness.”

***

There are no “obstructionist” Republican fingerprints on the conspicuous and power-depleting defeats for Obama. He never sought a vote on Syria and therefore was not humiliated. The same is true for Summers. But Obama lost ground on both fronts and ultimately surrendered to political realities that, for the first time in his presidency, were determined by his own obdurate party.

This does not mean Obama will lose coming fights over the sequester, shutdown, or debt ceiling. But he is visibly weaker, and even his sense of victory in Syria is so unidimensional, it has no lasting sway in either Democratic cloakroom. More important, Democrats are no longer afraid to defy him or to disregard the will of their constituents—broadly defined in the case of Syria; activist and money-driving in the case of Summers. This, of course, indirectly announces the beginning of the 2016 presidential campaign and an intra-party struggle over the post-Obama Democratic matrix.

Nearly five years into his presidency, and nearly a decade after he first sprang to national notice with his 2004 keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, there is still no such thing as Obamaism — no clearly understood philosophy or larger strategy of governance.

To the contrary, the president and his team have always had an allergic reaction to being placed on an ideological spectrum with any more precision than that he is a pragmatic progressive. Whatever that means. He has never tried to fashion a “Third Way” philosophy in the style of Bill Clinton, or stood for bold liberalism of the type exemplified by Ted Kennedy or, more recently, Elizabeth Warren.

This vagueness may have worked in his favor in two elections. But its problem for governing, as seen in recent weeks, is that it tends to leave Obama all alone, in a capital where he desperately needs allies and people who assume good will about the political maneuvering necessary for any effective president. Liberals regarded Obama as a sell-out for flirting with a Summers nomination, while the remnants of Clinton’s “New Democrats” have long been frustrated by Obama as someone who never really shared their critique of traditional interest-group urban liberalism.

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It’s gratifying to know the advice about renting and shooting as many guns as possible before deciding which one to buy was so helpful. After all, I’ve only been shooting for a little over fifty years, so there’s really no reason to think I might know what I’m talking about.

Since you’re determined to take my advice anyway, I have a bit more. I presume you have at least two mags, get a couple of more. Two loaded for carry, two at home unloaded. Change them out every time you practice.

Practice as much as you can. Not just shooting. Gun handling. Buy some dummy rounds, a full mag is needed but even three or four will make the required gun handling practice safe.”Snap caps” will do. Anybody who reloads can make you a set on fired brass, and these are more realistic. They can also be put into a mag at the range to practice reloads after misfires. (Have someone else load your mags so you don’t know when its coming.) Look up the “Israeli method”. They also use the empty chamber for safety method and their techniques for drawing the weapon and getting a round chambered are practical. Practice draw,load.presentation using the dummy ammo.

You must also learn to clear stoppages, stovepipes and double feeds. Again, use the dummy ammo.

You should be practicing as much as you can make time for until you master these skills. You want to have complete confidence in your skills for pretty obvious reasons. Then you can slack off. I still do dry fire practice at least once a month if I haven’t been to the range.”Snap caps” will do. Anybody who reloads can make you a set on fired brass.

I’m serious about the dummy rounds. I knew a guy who shot two people. One of them was an AD that hit a mutual acquaintaince as he was trying to demonstrate to the guy’s wife how to chamber a round using live ammo. The other was also an AD: He shot himself in the thigh as he was function-testing a gun he was tuning using live ammo.

So Obama enters yet another treacherous period in a weakened state, with his political allies distrustful and his political opponents caught up in their own dysfunction. Machiavelli advised that it is better to be feared than loved; at the moment, in Congress, Obama is neither.

Look up the “Israeli method”. They also use the empty chamber for safety method and their techniques for drawing the weapon and getting a round chambered are practical. Practice draw,load.presentation using the dummy ammo.

novaculus on September 19, 2013 at 12:22 AM

Changing mags while there’s still a live round chambered is a great time-saver … and gives you an extra measure of leeway if something goes wrong.

Changing mags while there’s still a live round chambered is a great time-saver … and gives you an extra measure of leeway if something goes wrong.

It’s the little things that make all the difference :)

ThePrimordialOrderedPair on September 19, 2013 at 12:49 AM

A good idea if the tactical situation permits. I’m just concerned that Twerp gets her basics down pat. She had a revolver, and the pistol is a different ball game.

Though I’m still not a fan of an empty chamber for safety …

ThePrimordialOrderedPair on September 19, 2013 at 12:50 AM

I often carry “Mexican”, and my carry guns are a 1911 and a Star S. I’ve found I can draw, chamber and present almost as quickly as I can draw & cock, and not much more slowly than draw, disengage safety & fire. I feel much better with an empty chamber when the muzzle is pointing in the general direction of my junk.

If there is some special reason to be concerned, there may be an opportunity to discreetly chamber a round and get the safety on while I’m trying to formulate an exit plan. Plan A is always to anticipate and avoid. Plan B is to make holes in the threat.

Frankly, he is not a very smart man. He has no concept of integrated and extended logic or planning. He reminds me of a drug/alcohol addict or an old newscaster that has outlived his brains. He was never a knowledgeable person. No indication of mastery over any subject. He always speaks in cliches.
Clearly over his head.

I’ve just been a bit surprised that Israel uses the open chamber technique for their field personnel.

ThePrimordialOrderedPair on September 19, 2013 at 1:17 AM

I think it had a lot to do with the fact they started out with various worn out junk for weapons. They had a lot of ADs, some caused by mechanical failures, others by trying to build an army from the personnel at hand. It was the best way to deal with minimal training and unreliable guns. I understand they’re getting away from it, although it held on for a long time even after they had good weapons and they weren’t training everyone who could walk to fight.

Nice. I got to hear Bream play once. (Nearly 40 years ago. Yikes!) It was at the IU Auditorium. He came out with a lute and said, ” I will do my best, but you must all understand the lute was never meant for so vast a hall as this.”

You could have heard a pin drop throughout, and the place was sold out.

When Pravda.ru editor, Dmitry Sudakov, offered to publish my commentary, he referred to me as “an active anti-Russian politician for many years.” I’m sure that isn’t the first time Russians have heard me characterized as their antagonist. Since my purpose here is to dispel falsehoods used by Russia’s rulers to perpetuate their power and excuse their corruption, let me begin with that untruth. I am not anti-Russian. I am pro-Russian, more pro-Russian than the regime that misrules you today.

I make that claim because I respect your dignity and your right to self-determination. I believe you should live according to the dictates of your conscience, not your government. I believe you deserve the opportunity to improve your lives in an economy that is built to last and benefits the many, not just the powerful few. You should be governed by a rule of law that is clear, consistently and impartially enforced and just. I make that claim because I believe the Russian people, no less than Americans, are endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

A Russian citizen could not publish a testament like the one I just offered. President Putin and his associates do not believe in these values. They don’t respect your dignity or accept your authority over them. They punish dissent and imprison opponents. They rig your elections. They control your media. They harass, threaten, and banish organizations that defend your right to self-governance. To perpetuate their power they foster rampant corruption in your courts and your economy and terrorize and even assassinate journalists who try to expose their corruption.

They write laws to codify bigotry against people whose sexual orientation they condemn. They throw the members of a punk rock band in jail for the crime of being provocative and vulgar and for having the audacity to protest President Putin’s rule.

Sergei Magnistky wasn’t a human rights activist. He was an accountant at a Moscow law firm. He was an ordinary Russian who did an extraordinary thing. He exposed one of the largest state thefts of private assets in Russian history. He cared about the rule of law and believed no one should be above it. For his beliefs and his courage, he was held in Butyrka prison without trial, where he was beaten, became ill and died. After his death, he was given a show trial reminiscent of the Stalin-era and was, of course, found guilty. That wasn’t only a crime against Sergei Magnitsky. It was a crime against the Russian people and your right to an honest government – a government worthy of Sergei Magnistky and of you.

President Putin claims his purpose is to restore Russia to greatness at home and among the nations of the world. But by what measure has he restored your greatness? He has given you an economy that is based almost entirely on a few natural resources that will rise and fall with those commodities. Its riches will not last. And, while they do, they will be mostly in the possession of the corrupt and powerful few. Capital is fleeing Russia, which – lacking rule of law and a broad-based economy – is considered too risky for investment and entrepreneurism. He has given you a political system that is sustained by corruption and repression and isn’t strong enough to tolerate dissent.

How has he strengthened Russia’s international stature? By allying Russia with some of the world’s most offensive and threatening tyrannies. By supporting a Syrian regime that is murdering tens of thousands of its own people to remain in power and by blocking the United Nations from even condemning its atrocities. By refusing to consider the massacre of innocents, the plight of millions of refugees, the growing prospect of a conflagration that engulfs other countries in its flames an appropriate subject for the world’s attention. He is not enhancing Russia’s global reputation. He is destroying it. He has made her a friend to tyrants and an enemy to the oppressed, and untrusted by nations that seek to build a safer, more peaceful and prosperous world.

President Putin doesn’t believe in these values because he doesn’t believe in you. He doesn’t believe that human nature at liberty can rise above its weaknesses and build just, peaceful, prosperous societies. Or, at least, he doesn’t believe Russians can. So he rules by using those weaknesses, by corruption, repression and violence. He rules for himself, not you.

I do believe in you. I believe in your capacity for self-government and your desire for justice and opportunity. I believe in the greatness of the Russian people, who suffered enormously and fought bravely against terrible adversity to save your nation. I believe in your right to make a civilization worthy of your dreams and sacrifices. When I criticize your government, it is not because I am anti-Russian. It is because I believe you deserve a government that believes in you and answers to you. And, I long for the day when you have it.
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All of the extravagant promises and claims — of “Yes We Can!” and “we’re the ones we’ve been waiting for;” of hope and change and slowing the rise of the oceans; of claiming his candidacy would “ring out across this land as a hymn that will heal this nation, repair this world, make this time different than all the rest” —

I don’t get so. Such a gigglesnort out of those old slogans as much as a gag reflex. People I know still high each other when they think things are going their way and say that stuff. “Yes we can!” I fight to not roll my eyes in front of them.

I don’t get so. Such a gigglesnort out of those old slogans as much as a gag reflex. People I know still high each other when they think things are going their way and say that stuff. “Yes we can!” I fight to not roll my eyes in front of them.

smoothsailing on September 19, 2013 at 5:15 AM

If you cannot laugh then surely you’ll go mad. Just laugh and know that in the end, it’ll all be alright.

/Obama to feign illness and make a grand exit from the world stage in 13 months. Just a prediction.

Hmmm…. PointnClick is the guy at the back of the classroom, so dark and mysterious (he arrived in a cab!!!)… Yeah, we might pretend to like the cool kids but it’s the bad boys that get us goody two shoes everytime… *Swooon*